


chess piece

by Larrant



Category: K (Anime)
Genre: Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 22:51:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5473481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He realizes that it's been two weeks since he left SCEPTER 4. It feels like longer.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>a character study</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	chess piece

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before Episode 12 came out, and then I felt like I should probably finish and post it xD  
> and i'm reisaru trash so i had to include that in there in some way. oops. im sorry. ;-;

 

 

 _Pachi_.

 

Another piece is moved on the board, and Fushimi stifles a sigh. For setting up a chess board, the Captain sure does take a long time. As usual it's European chess, with its tall pieces and elegant setup- familiar to him, of course, because what strategy game wasn't. Seeing it now, it provoked too many memories of childhood, a long tally of matches he had never failed to lose.

 

"Not surprising someone like you plays chess," he mutters just to fill the silence, and wonders how the bastard does it, sitting seiza like this for more than five minutes at a time. His knees are already aching, and he shifts on his heels to soothe the pressure, wondering if it would just be acceptable to sit cross legged instead. "You'd think we were all pawns to you."

 

It's not even meant to trigger a reaction, that's how uninterested Saruhiko is in the proceedings in general. The steaming cup of green tea he's sitting next to is untouched, and he raises it to his lips again, wrinkles his nose, and then decides- maybe not. He puts it down again, looks out of the window.

 

"Not at all," arrives the measured reply, and without looking he can already see the soft smile the response comes with. It makes his tongue press against the top of his mouth in a habitual tsk. "People aren't chess pieces, after all."

 

If it was a normal person, they might stop there. There's something more to come, of course. There always is, from Munakata.

 

"Unlike chess pieces, humans require a certain level of finesse in order to manipulate. It could hardly be compared to a game as simple as chess."

 

Right, and there we go.

 

"Now, Fushimi-kun, how about a game?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

It's that memory which comes back to him unbidden one night.

 

He's in a cheap apartment, rented out for the night. The air conditioning barely works, a hum in the background that cools the stale air as it circulates. It probably doesn't help that he's got a window thrown open to the skyscrapers outside, the humid air rushing out as soon as it cooled. _Humans require a certain level of finesse in order to manipulate_.

 

He snorts, a sound which has the blonde haired ninja chick glance over at him for a moment from her bed, eyebrow raised in question before she settles back into sleep. He doesn't even notice, sat on the floor staring into Tokyo's brightly flashing nightlife.

 

"... Go fuck yourself," he mutters aloud to a man who is not there. Douhan decides to ignore him this time- she's gotten used to it by now, how Fushimi talks to himself, as disconcerting as it may be. She's probably accepted that he's somewhat unstable. Somewhat.

 

He realizes that it's been two weeks since he left SCEPTER 4. It feels like longer.

 

There's an ache on his collarbone, opposite his scarred flesh. When he peels open his shirt to look, the bruises from the last time they'd fucked are already nothing more than dark indents on his skin.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Weren't you a traitor from the start?"

 

He understands now. He understands, and hates himself for understanding.

 

"Fine," he snarls aloud, and he imagines Munakata can hear him, the bastard. He wouldn't be surprised if somehow he could. "Then I'll be a traitor."

 

There is a burning fester in his chest to destroy, to wreck and break and cut and ruin- and he knows he won't do it. It won't make anything better, and he isn't so much of a child anymore, a child who needs to smash things in order to feel better- not that he will feel better anyway if he does, he knows that from experience. It only ever makes things worse, and the next day when his hands are bruised and there's something heavy in his stomach, he'll just feel even worse.

 

(There is something aching dark and bitter in his heart, and he'll ignore that too, ignore it until it goes away- but it never will. He knows _that_ from experience too).

 

He thinks that the Captain knows him too well. It's a more sour thought than usual. It's funny how you can understand you're being manipulated, and yet still be manipulated.

 

The green light glowing from his phone reflects off his glass lenses, and without thinking, his lips have already twisted up into a smirk.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"You're a twisted person," he mutters, and the Captain smiles, brings a hand to his cheek- it's oddly cold, for a person who seems like they should be warm.

 

"I am," Munakata agrees, and the hand has descended to his collar to pull him back in for another kiss. The Captain tastes like green tea and smoke. A strange taste, but somehow it's not bad. When he finally breaks away, it's an unreadable smile on Munakata's lips- somehow sad and somehow dark. "I want you to do something for me."

 

He shrugs, leaning away. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth, as if it can remove the invisible stain the kiss has left behind. "What is it," he asks, a question and a statement.

 

Munakata tells him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He isn't surprised when he sees the Captain on the blue glow of the monitor. The bastard really does plan for everything. Zenjou Gouki, on the other hand, provokes a blink of surprise- something cold and bitter flashing through his chest, akin to bitterness and yet nothing alike to it. There's a wrongness in that image, a wrongness that has his eyes narrowing just faintly. Jealousy? He knows that emotion well enough to recognize it, and this is something like that.

 

So this, he considers, and looks longer at the screen- at the brown haired man with the scar on his nose, this is his replacement?

 

He wonders, not for the first time, if Munakata ever intends on taking him back after this.

 

But he's already aware he'll never know the answer. It's not like he's going to survive this, after all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Certainly. If I stay here... dealing with idiots, being forced to obey a superior's reckless orders, I won't have to do any of that... huh."

 

Even as he speaks, it's emptiness echoing hollow in his chest, twisted so in its emptiness that it hurts. Strange. He's become more attached than he thought he was. He understands that for himself a moment after he voices those words aloud.

 

It's no use denying it now. Not when he's known it for such a long time already.

 

"Then my answer's obvious."

 

He hopes Munakata never finds the damn tape of this.

 

"No thanks."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He visits their old apartment, three weeks in and having just made U in the ranking system. He runs his hands along the walls, stripped bare, looks at the kotatsu still on the floor. It's dusty and unkempt now- he still kept the rent going here, for some reason even he didn't know. He hasn't visited this place for years. There's a bitter ache in his chest, and he wonders if Misaki will ever forgive him for this.

 

Still, it's not like it matters. It's not like any of them will ever know. Not just Misaki. Awashima, Akiyama, Benzai... Hidaka.

 

It seems that until the very end, he'll still be a traitor.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> leave some kudos? =D? or a comment? =D??
> 
> tumblr: kyushoku.tumblr.com


End file.
